What the Battles of the Past Tell Us About the New Air War Over Syria

Who owns the sky over a modern battlefield? In the wake of the first air-to-air dogfight in 17 years—a United States F/A-18 shooting down a Syrian Su-22—it's time to evaluate the state of air superiority between Russian and American hardware and doctrine. The victory prize is nothing less than the ability to shape the Middle East.

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Whoever can operate their warplanes with impunity enjoys critical advantages, including providing close air support for ground troops, having secure supply lines, and getting real time recon on enemy troops and aircraft. Whoever can't do it loses more than face. They are relegated to a back seat in the 21st century geopolitics.

The strategic situation in Syria is like many Cold War conflicts before it, with a proxy military using Russian-made equipment (Syrian government) squaring off against U.S. pilots supporting a faction on the ground (Syrian rebels). This time around, the hardware is different. But by looking at the last time the U.S. and Russian warplanes clashed, over the skies of Europe between 1995 and 1999, we can get a sense of what has changed. There is untested new technology that may determine who'll win if this ugly situation turns even uglier.

Back to the 90s

It was the first day. As NATO and Yugoslavia renewed hostilities a two-pronged strike force of U.S. stealth aircraft charged into Yugoslavia's national airspace, following a hail of long range missiles. More than a dozen fighters escorted them. Between their own radar and the nearby NATO AWACS air warning and control airplanes, the allied warplanes saw the airspace. So when Russian-made MiG-29s take off, they knew it.

F-15Cs from the 493d Expeditionary Fighter Squadron intercepted the MiGs heading toward both prongs of the attack. An Air Force Magazinearticle from 2004 tells the tale of Capt. Michael Shower. Cleared to engage, Shower fired two AIM-120s (AIM stands for Air Intercept Missile), but missed. The MiG- 29 started closing on him and on nearby F-117s. Adrenaline surging, Shower held his ground. "I didn't think I had a choice of turning and running away," he later told the Nellis base newspaper. "You've got a MiG-29 running around in the area, and there is a chance he could get lucky and find a stealth [aircraft.]"

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The United States Air Force uses AIMs to hit things beyond the line of sight. These are "fire and forget" weapons with radar seekers in their nosecones. So Shower kept his wits and loosed a third AIM-120 missile, which careened toward the MiG-29. The missile's radar determined when the enemy airplane was within the blast radius of its fragmentation warhead. The Air Force and Navy constantly upgrade the AIM-120, and this version (C-6) had an improved fuse. It detonated and peppered the MiG-29 with fragments. In total, NATO shot down five Yugoslavian fighters in the first three days of the conflict, with no friendly aircraft losses. Each of these kills was performed by an AIM-120.

That was then. A similar confrontation could look different today.

First, the AIM-120 is still improving. It has the same rocket motor and body, but it's smarter. The missile has a new GPS system that helps it to choose an efficient flight path. It has a datalink that guides the missile at longer ranges, making real-time adjustments to its flight using information from the plane's radar and sensors. Once it gets close enough, the missile's own radar can guide it home.

Also, the AIM-120 is ubiquitous, and so you can guarantee the Russians have been studying ways to defeat it. (As Popular Mechanics has noted for some time, for anti-aircraft weaponeers in Russia the Cold War never really ended.) The craft of electronic warfare has never been more important than on today's battlefield. The invisible information tether between the AIM-120 and the fighter that fired it can be severed if an enemy floods the same frequencies with white noise. At closer ranges, the AIM-120's seeker radar could be jammed by digital receivers that detect a signal, copies it and send it back to the source in a confusing jumble.

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Syrian fighters may not be able to perform such feats of electronic warfare, but some Russian warplanes are equipped with jamming equipment. The SU-34, a fighter-bomber that Vladimir Putin has deployed to airbases in Syria, has since late 2016 been equipped with pretty advanced Khibiny jamming pods. These wingtip add-ons are specifically made to counter long-range NATO radar and the seekers of U.S. missiles.

So in the 21st century, the United States is using an updated but old missile in an environment where electronic warfare could determine who wins.

The Aerial Combatants

The F-15C remains an aerial apex predator, just as it was over Yugoslavia. It has the power to gain speed and altitude, both advantages is nearly any dogfight. It also has a longer range than the F/A-18 Super Hornet, and carries a larger (thus more powerful) radar. But at closer ranges, other U.S. warplanes can put up a good fight as well. A SuperHornet may have a short range and small size, but it can turn its nose (and aim its close-range weapons) on a dime. That's a good airplane to have in a knife fight.

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What about the F-22 Raptor, the stealth fighter unequaled on any battlefield? It is true that the aircraft is a deadly combatant, but it's armed with the same AIM-120s for long-range attacks, and just six of them. So it can loiter unseen and its powerful radar can spot enemies from long distances. The Raptor will have to rely on the datalink and radar in the missile's seeker to hit its targets, the very things the jammers are meant to defeat.

The F-22 is highly maneuverable and tenacious dogfighter at close ranges, but it does have flaws. The biggest is the lack of helmet-mounted targeting. In most modern warplanes, pilots can take aim by turning their heads and having a head's up display in the helmet to set up a missile shot, especially away from the airplane's center line (at "high off boresight" angles.) The Air Force has been trying to make this happen in the Raptor for a decade, but budget cuts have left the world's most advanced fighter with a crude fighting style when it comes to close combat. The latest estimate of when these helmets would appear is 2020.

As for America's aerial opponents, the Su-22 Fitter that an F/A-18 shot down on Sunday is not exactly a modern fighter. The Syrian Air Force used them to attack Israel in the Yom Kippur War…in 1973. But there are other fighters in the inventory. These include Mig-23ML/MLD fighters and, more worrisome, Mig-29s. Then there are the Russian warplanes that operate over Syria, those SU-34s and SU-25s.

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So when it comes to dogfighting, are the Russians and Syrians a real threat? The smart money remains fixed on the U.S. and NATO warplanes, in no small degree because of the intensive training of the pilots. But the real threat is not missiles from other airplanes. To dominate the air, Russia will turn to its mobile airplane killers on the ground. It's time for surface-to-air missiles.

Ground to Air

Ever since Stalin watched the Allies crush Nazi Germany and Japan with heavy bombers, Russia has been obsessed with air defense. Regarding the situation in Syria, a piece in Pravda, the venerable organ of Russian state communication, warned against threatening Russian aircraft. "They should not even try to shoot down Russian aircraft. That would be the beginning of the end," the article reads. "Should Washington attack, Moscow will be the first to impose a no-fly zone over Syria."

The Russian no-fly game has always been mobile AA batteries that can target airplanes and cruise missiles. The Pravda article helpfully lists the scary anti-aircraft missiles they have in Syria: the S-400 "with the defense radius of up to 400 kilometers," S-300 anti-aircraft missile batteries, and the lower-end but still effective Pantsir S1, Buk and Osa systems.

A true showdown between these ground-based anti-aircraft systems and American hardware has been a long time coming. Post–Cold War engineers in Russia breathed new, deadly life into VHF radars that have been around since the 1970s by digitizing their signals. Better computing power has improved the system's ability to glean coherent information from a jumble of data. Faint VHF radar returns that once would have been construed as random background noise can now be detected and identified.

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The S-300 is among the biggest threats, and because it's exported to Iran and others, it brings up the biggest worries for military planners. Created in the 1970s and steadily upgraded, it was designed to shoot down American planes. The S-300 has never been fired in combat anywhere in the world, but its very presence causes Air Force attack planners to pause. The system uses modern missiles that can not only track and destroy airplanes but also thwart cruise and ballistic missiles. The S-300s have an advertised range of 93 miles.

There is more to the system than just a single vehicle firing anti-aircraft missiles. Here's how it would work: Long-range radar spots a target and delivers the data to a command and control vehicle, where the decision to shoot is made. Most S-300s deploy in layers, as a battalion. That means six launch vehicles can be ordered to shoot. Usually the one with the best position to intercept will fire. A shorter-range radar that's mounted on yet another vehicle (it's called the engagement radar) steers the missile toward the target, guiding as many as a dozen missiles at six targets.

All of this buildup leaves us with big questions. Are the Russian anti-aircraft missiles as deadly as advertised? Has U.S. electronic warfare and hacking evolved enough to exploit weaknesses in these systems? Does U.S. stealth work as intended, or are there ways to spot and shoot even these warplanes?

We may get the answers if the situation in Syria deteriorates into outright war. All we know so far is that both sides are playing to their historic strengths: America with its advanced airplanes and Russia with its advanced surface-to-air missiles. In this, not much has changed since 1999. An Air Force Historical Research Agency report from 2009 tallies the air combat and found that 10 Serbian and three NATO airplanes had been downed between 1994 and 1999. "Every one of the ten Serbian airplanes shot down was destroyed by aircraft fire, and none by ground fire," the paper says. "Not one of the three NATO airplanes shot down was lost to enemy aircraft fire, all by ground fire."

The equipment is changing, but the fighting style remains the same. Until the shooting starts, we can only wade through the defense industry claims, political posturing and games of brinkmanship. And then the people on the front lines, manning radar stations and cockpits, will stake their lives on the answers.

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